Bluffmaster!

Name	Bluffmaster!
Caption	Poster
Director	Rohan Sippy
Producer	Ramesh Sippy
Writer	Rajat AroraShridhar Raghavan
Starring	Abhishek BachchanPriyanka ChopraRitesh Deshmukh
Music	Vishal-ShekharTrickbabySameeruddin
Cinematography	Himman Dhamija
Editing	Amitabh Shukla
Distributor	Entertainment One Pvt. Ltd
Released	16 December 2005
Runtime	139 mins
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget
Gross

Bluffmaster! is a 2005 Bollywood film, a remake of the Argentine film Nine Queens. Starring Abhishek Bachchan, Ritesh Deshmukh and Priyanka Chopra. Boman Irani and Nana Patekar have supporting roles in the film. This film is not related to Manmohan Desai's film Bluff Master released in 1963.

The film was directed by Rohan Sippy, the son of Ramesh Sippy. This film was his second directorial venture following his film Kuch Naa Kaho. The role played by Priyanka Chopra was originally given to Aishwarya Rai, but she was dropped from the film. Special appearance was done by Arash Labaf, an Iranian singer.

Synopsis

Roy Kapoor (Abhishek Bachchan) is a conman, and he is not ashamed of it. In fact, he believes himself to be a "Bluffmaster". Roy's girlfriend Simi (Priyanka Chopra) is ignorant about this truth as he has conned her too into believing that he is an investment banker. One day he cons a film producer (Tinu Anand) of his money. Unfortunately, the producer turns out to be an acquaintance of Simi and thus Roy's true face is exposed to Simi. Simi calls their wedding off.

Some weeks past this episode, Roy sees an amateur conman Dittu (Ritesh Deshmukh) conning a doctor called Dr. Bhalerao (Boman Irani). Roy meets and foils Dittu's plans a couple of times, upon which Dittu pesters Roy to become his mentor. Roy reluctantly accepts Dittu (who is a film buff as well), but now he wants to make amends with Simi.

One day, Roy starts experiencing blurring of eyes, unbearable headache and blackouts. Dr. Bhalerao diagnoses him with brain tumor and says he has only 3 months to live. Roy is shattered, even more so as Simi is not ready to accept him. When Roy gets signs that Simi is engaged to someone else, Roy resigns to his fate and turns his attention to Dittu.

Dittu reveals that his father was a simple man who was conned of his life savings by a share market scam, apparently pulled by Chandru (Nana Patekar). Chandru is a whimsical but ruthless man. Roy decides to do use his skills for Dittu. When Roy sees a news footage about a robbery in a jewellery shop, Roy gets an idea to con Chandru.

Roy sends one of his men as police to Chandru to give him a list of serial numbers of all the notes stolen in the "heist" (which they have themselves printed). Then Roy and Dittu turn themselves up at Chandru's hotel as suspicious characters with lots of money. When Chandru is convinced that they are the thieves, he proposes to give them any amount for the stolen loot. They strike a deal with Chandru.

Meanwhile, Simi re-enters Roy's life after learning that he was telling the truth. She has broken her marriage and wants to be with Roy in his last days. She learns from Roy why he took up to being a conman. Meanwhile, Chandru promises Roy the full share if he eliminates Dittu. Roy cons Chandru to believe that he has killed Dittu. Chandru promises him his money next day.

Next day, the deal takes place in a theater, where Dittu suddenly shows up and kills Roy. He elicits Rs. 5 crores from a frightened Chandru. Chandru leaves, after which it is revealed that Roy and Dittu have successfully conned him. Unfortunately, Omar, a man whom Roy had conned earlier sees this and figures out the whole truth.

He confronts the duo and scoots off with the money. Roy faces one more blackout and opens his eyes in Dr. Bhalerao's hospital. He sees a pained look on Dittu's face who has learnt Roy's secret. Dr. Bhalerao tells Roy that his cure is possible in foreign, but money is the problem.

Roy withdraws all his life's savings. Suddenly, he gets a call from Simi. He answers, but hears the voice of Chandru. Chandru tells him that he has kidnapped Simi and knows the whole story. Roy promises to give him his money back if he does not harm Simi. Roy heads towards the rendezvous location with Dittu, telling him to take Simi to a safe place the moment she comes down. Roy comes on the top floor to meet an angry Chandru.

Chandru leaves Simi, but has a scuffle with Roy. He angrily pushes Roy from the roof. Roy falls down, but instead of dying, ends up on an inflated plastic bed and survives. Confused, he turns towards people surrounding him, only to learn that they thought it was a film shoot. Roy tries to call everyone from Simi to Dittu and Chandru, but gets no response. Then he realizes that he has been elaborately conned.

After learning that he has no brain tumour, he heads to a place where he thinks everybody would be present. As expected, he meets everybody and as Dittu gives real introduction of every partner, Roy is left amazed. Dr. Bhalerao is actually a vet while Chandru is the script writer for all the drama (who in reality is afraid of smallest of the things). Roy learns that Dittu is actually Arjun a film-driector, and is the son of the producer he had conned and that even Simi's second engagement was fake.

Then, Dittu explains in detail how the whole operation was planned. After learning that it was Simi and Dittu's idea to teach him a lesson, Roy approaches and makes up with Simi.

Cast

Abhishek Bachchan as Roy Kapoor

Priyanka Chopra as Simran Saxena aka Simi

Ritesh Deshmukh as Aditya Srivastav aka Dittu

Nana Patekar as Chandrakant Parekh aka Chandru

Boman Irani as Dr. Bhalerao

Trivia

When Roy and Dittu attempt a con in a cinema hall, the movie playing is Ramesh Sippy's hit film Shaan. This film starred Abhishek Bachchan's father Amitabh Bachchan.

The song Do Aur Do Paanch is originally from the film of the same name, which starred Amitabh Bachchan, the father of Abhishek, lead actor of this film.

Majority of the background music of the film & some dialogues were taken straight away from various films of Sippy Productions.

The song "Bitter Sweet Symphony" appears during several scenes in the film.

The film is based on the movies Criminal and Nine Queens.

The movie bears many resemblances to the Hollywood film Matchstick Men, a Ridley Scott film starring Nicolas Cage. Interestingly Cage's name in Matchstick Men was Roy and Bachchan's name in Bluffmaster is Roy Kapoor.

The movie is also inspired by the 1997 Michael Douglas film, The Game.

Music

The soundtrack was released in 20 November 2005. The background score was done by Sameeruddin.

Track listing

#Sabse Bada Rupaiyya : Mehmood, Chetan, Saira Hussain, TrickBaby - 4:09 #Say Na Say Na : Aneela, Robert Uhlmann, Arash - 3:16 #Tabdeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer: Geeta Dutt, Sameeruddin - 3:25 #Right Here Right Now : Abhishek Bachchan, Sunidhi Chauhan - 3:02 #9 Parts Of Desire : TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) - 3:48 #The Gateway Theme : Sameeruddin - 2:47 #Boro Boro : Robert Uhlmann, Arash - 3:06 #Do Aur Do Paanch : Kishore Kumar, Sameeruddin - 4:29 #Indi-Yarn: TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) - 3:58 #Neela : TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) - 3:06 #Parde Ke Peechhe : Jaideep Sahni, TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) - 3:37 #Come Fishing (Bluffmaster Theme) : Sammeruddin - 2:42 #Right Here Right Now (Hip Hop Mix) : Abhishek Bachchan, Sunidhi Chauhan - 3:43

Critical reception

BluffMaster! got some hard reviews. However, it was the third highest opening of the year 2005 so far. The film had been declared 'Average', but after some time business of Bluffmaster! soared rapidly, and the film was declared as a hit. In the Mumbai circuit Bluffmaster! was a super hit.

References

External links

Category:2005 films Category:Indian films Category:Hindi-language films